Zim­babwe needs trust

ZIM­BABWE as a busi­ness en­tity has trust is­sues and it’s to the detri­ment of our po­lit­i­cal, fi­nan­cial, phys­i­cal and spir­i­tual des­ti­na­tion.

In the busi­ness world it’s all about trust. The world over busi­ness is all about re­la­tion­ships. And good re­la­tion­ships are built on trust. Whichever way you look at it or de­fine it, it’s about re­la­tion­ships be­tween at least two par­ties. If we lived in a vac­uum then we would not need to be trust­wor­thy at all.

As I write the pre­car­i­ous Zim­bab­wean sit­u­a­tion that we find our­selves in is not healthy for the econ­omy at large.

Zimra doesn’t trust any­one at all. It goes with­out say­ing that in­di­vid­u­als do not trust any­where where they will be asked to part with their hard earned cash. That cre­ates a toxic sit­u­a­tion be­cause no one will lis­ten no mat­ter how much par­ties are talk­ing and that is chaotic for an econ­omy. This road to eco­nomic eman­ci­pa­tion is lit­tered with trust is­sues and has deep­ened with time be­tween all par­ties that make a na­tion. As a na­tion we need to be trusted by other na­tions, for­eign­ers and fi­nanciers.

As a Gov­ern­ment we need to be trusted by all stake­hold­ers. As a pri­vate com­pany we need to be trusted by our peers and cus­tomers. As a leader I need to be trusted by those that re­li­giously fol­low me in the busi­ness I nur­ture. As an in­di­vid­ual I need to be trusted by my peers and ev­ery­one I come in con­tact with.

With the lit­tle I am re­spon­si­ble and ac­count­able for I need to be trusted so that I can be trusted with more in terms of re­spon­si­bil­ity and ac­count­abil­ity. We can­not overem­pha­sise the need to build bridges of trust as we start to build again. In our lit­tle strides let’s start to earn trust among all stake­hold­ers with­out tak­ing each other for granted. It’s a process that will need give and take as we build that much needed trust as we seek to fi­nan­cially eman­ci­pate our­selves. We are as strong as our weak­est link and as at present our weak­est link is trust. All else is sec­ondary. We still can sal­vage some­thing from the above stated weak­ened re­la­tion­ships. We trust the en­vi­ron­ment will be con­ducive for busi­nesses. We trust prices will be just and so will be wages. We trust there will be fair com­pe­ti­tion. We trust those we ap­point will en­act fair trad­ing rules and laws. We trust our train­ing in­sti­tu­tions will re­main rel­e­vant. We trust fi­nan­cial con­cerns will lend and give credit fairly and in a just man­ner to en­cour­age growth.

We trust those that bor­row will ser­vice their obli­ga­tions. Above all ad­e­quate fund­ing is es­sen­tial. There is a need for trust from Gov­ern­ment, pri­vate firms and in­di­vid­u­als in gen­eral. It’s a mutual re­la­tion­ship for it to be ben­e­fi­cial to all stake­hold­ers. We trust credit tak­ers will hon­our their obli­ga­tions for the good of ev­ery­one.

We trust in­ter­na­tional fi­nance play­ers will lend to Zim­babwe sin­cerely and in turn Zim­babwe gets the fund­ing and use it in a trust­wor­thy man­ner. And we trust Zim­babwe to ser­vice its debts ac­cord­ingly. One thing though if we can’t trust each other noth­ing else will work. It’s as sim­ple as that. We trust all stake­hold­ers will lis­ten just a lit­tle and less talk­ing.

In Zim­babwe we still have trust as the coun­try is not a failed State but suf­fers failed trust. Fel­low Zim­bab­weans